Thats pretty cool. No chance of winning the prize but it should be a good reliable launcher judging from the way they are doing things. Its just a shame they are going to launch from Woomera rather than England. It leaves us facing a very long and tiring flight to get to a launch site and it is cheaper and quicker to fly to America. Could be missing out on a rather large market there... Maybe the French will let Starchaser launch from the Algerian desert to serve the European market.

Hmmm, a handy link that. I would prefer to go up on a Starchaser type of rocket for the thrill of the countdown and seeing the earths horizon slide away down the window. (I also hoped to be able to see the launches from home!) As cool as SS1 is, the launch just won't cut it as an attraction compared to a vertical ground launch.

With respect to the launch site; Starchaser are unable to launch from the UK due to lack of a suitable launch and recovery site. The THUNDERSTAR / STARCHASER 5 RLV is designed for a land recovery and the Woomer rocket range covers a vast area.

The Australian government are also being very positive where as the UK government are not interested in manned space flight in any shape or form.

Starchaser support the X PRIZE foundation, and as such intend to take part in the X PRIZE cup. This will be held in New Mexico and hence provide a US based launch site.

Starchaser is focused on developing safe, reliable, affordable and reusable commercial access to space. The whole vehicle development programme is being done with this long term objective in mind.

Starchaser are determined to become a major player in the emerging space tourism market.

hey
mike, was just wandering if there are student rates to join the clubs? saw there is a rate for the elderly but would love to become a member at student prices, maybe a bit of an untapped resource?
also quick query, any one know why when i launch the webcam it just buffers then says ready? but no play?

hate the damm government when it comes to manned flight, well with you with the aus thing, the governments are all the same here. But lets not get political, Aus does have amazing huge spaces!
keep it up boys!

was also wandering about the 2million i heard starchaser need to get, surely that is a massive problem! and will it not delay the launches?

My apologies, of course they are independent now. I'm just not sure if they actually have a government or not.

Does any country in Africa have a government? I mean, they always say that they do, but the average lifespan of each nation in Africa seems to be about six months. After that, it's time for a civil war, revolution, or something to break it apart. No offense to anyone living there, but Africa looks like a real mess to anyone outside of it.

Of course, if the British were renting a launch site out of Africa, why not one of their own former colonies? Launching out of a formerly-British country like Kenya, Botswana, or South Africa would be easier for foreingers (Us Americans don't have to learn French), and, if you went out of Kenya, you'd get a nice view of Mt. Kiliminjaro (sp.) from the top.

It would be ideal, of course, for Starchaser to launch out of the UK, but there's very little room there for a launch site. Vertical launch pads require a minimum safe distance from populated areas and quite a bit of infrastructure. Of course, Britian used to own the US, but it's probably better to launch from a place that's stayed closer to them throughout history than America, for this Australia seems to be the perfect choice. Of course, there's always the Virgin Islands, spend a nice day at the beach, launch into space, and take in some SCUBA diving all in one day. Sounds like a pretty decent vacation package to me.

It really is a shame that Starchaser isn't going to be able to bag the X-Prize, but they may face I brighter future than many of the other X-Prize contenders. Scaled has said that they don't plan to go anywhere with SS1 after the X-Prize is won, they'll be moving on to other things. DaVinci is a non-profit volunteer organization, after they launch, they'll probably just disband. Starchaser and Canadian Arrow are the two that, IMHO, will go the farthest, because they have real hardware and the business plan to back it up. Together they could become the foundation of the space tourism industry.

_________________"Yes, that series of words I just said made perfect sense!"
-Professor Hubert Farnsworth

We are having some problems with the PC that runs the web cam. This should be back up and running soon.

Starchaser have always stated its long term objective is to develop commercial access to space, and regardless of who wins the ANASARI X PRIZE Starchaser are determined to become a major player in the Space Tourism market.

As with everything, funding is critical, and this is where Scaled Composites took the lead. The $20 million gift from Paul Allen allowed Scaled to focus on developing White Knight and SS1, whereas Starchaser have had to focus considerable effort on fund raising.

Starchaser are, however, one of the few X PRIZE teams that are perfectly placed to move forward after the ANASARI X PRIZE and develop the vehicles that will open up access to space for everyone.

starchaser, canadian arrow, and armadillo are the 3 that strike me as being able to quickly make the jump from experimental to commercial operations once their vehicles are done. obviously scaled won't do commercial flights, but i really see no reason why they can't sell ss1 to some other company for the commercial aspect, and then move on to "tier two" hopefully .

big starchaser fan as u know, thought it was afair comment to say that people think they will be around with their ships for a long time, i dont think they will stop after this, well we nkow they wont! would be great if ss1 was sold, isnt it about time branson got in on the act?

was also wondering if there was anywhere to download a 3ds or 3d model of the starchaser ship? i see they used software to design it, so would be nice to see what it will look like in 3d!